The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin

I've been reading lots lately.  A combination of cold weather (winter has truly arrived in New Zealand) and escapist stress release.

I chose to read 'The Invisible Woman' as I saw the film advertised, thought 'there goes a great costume drama and boy do I love a good costume drama', but I wanted to read the book first to better inform the film.

Ms Tomalin is a great writer, with a firm grasp on non-fiction having written biographies of many of the literary greats (the men!) including Dickens himself.  I've not read any of her previous books, and while I think I will want to read her biography of Dickens, at the moment I'm too annoyed at his outrageous behaviour towards the women and children in his life to want to spend anymore time with him!

The Invisible Woman is an easy read.  It is a fascinating account of Nelly (Ellen) Ternan, whom Charles Dickens became besotted with, and had a 13 year relationship from 1857 until his death.  He was 27 years older than her, (she was only 18 when they met).  And yet she appears no where in the official records of the time about Dicken's life.  In order to maintain his reputation as the ultimate Victorian paterfamilias he hid (almost) all records of Nelly's existence.  Although he abandoned his wife Catherine, and allowed her little access to their many children he managed to either keep Nelly's existence from them, or have them join him in keeping her from official record.

Tomalin's detective work to uncover the actual detail and in some cases, guess work concerning Nelly's life is extensive.  She really brings Nelly, her family, their circumstances and their place within Victorian England alive.

A fascinating and highly recommended read.

Scrappy Trip and Storm at Sea WIP x 2

I have too many WIP.  I love fabric, I love colours, I love the rush of excitement in starting and seeing how things come together....and then I get bored.  The rest of life catches up with me.  We move house again, (we've moved house a lot!) and the project gets packed up and put away.

But not with my Scrappy Trip quilt.  This is the most recent quilt top I've started.  I'm confident I'll get this top finished this year.  The quilting is now finished, next job is piecing together the remaining strips to make a scrappy binding.

I know lots of other people have already made Scrappy Trips around the World, I'm just a (very) late starter.  I got a great set of instructions here....

My version is almost all scraps.  Some shirting remnants from our time in Singapore, a gift from a dear friend, a non-sewer who specially went in search of shirting scraps for me; some scraps from a class with Kaffe Fassett some six years ago (another still unfinished WIP); some secondhand shirts purchased recently in Melbourne.  I'm loving working with all the memories and glorious colours.

My second current WIP has a working title of "Storm at Sea". 

This WIP was started March 2009, while we were living in Melbourne.  Coincidentally it was also started to use up some fabric cut for the same Kaffe Fassett class, but the wrong depth of colour.  I wanted to re-use the big blocks, like the blue and pink daises on the deep purple background below, without trimming them down at all.  I also wanted to use the 'Ohio Star Quilt' pattern from Kaffe Fassett's Kaleidoscope of Quilts book.  The blocks were already cut at 9.5inches, whereas the Ohio Stars called for 11.5 inch blocks.  Much mathematical redrafting occurred.  Inappropriate language was used. 

The top was half made before we had to pack up for the move to Singapore.  It was finally recovered from a box mid 2011, and I completed all the stars and all but the corner setting triangles.  Now it is out again.  I am determined to get borders onto it, a back pieced, and layers basted together before we move house again.  Let's see if I make it!

Borders are auditioned in the photo below.  I've decided I don't like either of these options.  I think I need the energy of the border on the right, but more of the colour of the stars.  What do you think?

An American in Oz by Sara James

This is another book in the (one of many) genre that I love, 'escape the rat race to a lovely life in the/another country'.  I am fascinated by other cultures, and how they are perceived by outsiders to that culture, so this book was an easy 'yes I want to read that' when it appeared on my 'Recommended for you' list on my Kindle.  Further, having lived in Australia several times ourselves I was interested in revisiting places I loved, and whether our experiences were similar.

I enjoyed this book.

James writes about that challenges of relocating her family from New York to rural Victoria, Australia, made particularly complicated by the many and changing requirements of her special needs daughter.  I felt she captured the essence of the Australian bush, and a particularly beautiful part of Victoria (Mt Macedon) without glossing over the challenges including the terrible Black Saturday fires.

She describes the frustrations faced by many working mothers, as she seeks to find a balance between the needs of her family and her desire to continue with her foreign correspondent career for one of the American networks.

Her writing style was easy to read, succinct but descriptive, with nice pacing as the book moved between family and work.

Dr Suess quilt for Sam

Since I started quilting I have (very slowly) been making quilts for my nieces and nephews (and boy do I have a lot of nieces and nephews).  I started out making them for the younger children - then quickly realised that baby quilts are smaller - so got in fast to make baby quilts for three of the new borns, but still there were three children left (on one side of the family) without quilts.

Sam, was the only remaining member of his particular family without a quilt - and guilt was eating at me.  About a year ago, the daughter that knows Sam best, spotted Dr Suess fabric on the shelves.  And it was the perfect fabric choice.  Sam is high energy, and his name is featured several times over.

But what pattern to use?  I made a false start fussy cutting and framing a few images - but it was too fussy, too small and too slow.

And then I saw this super simple baby quilt at Shush I'm Quilting's blog and it was perfect!  I made one change, adding white sashing (and green 'Sam I am' sashing in some places) but otherwise the dimensions are the same.  I'm really pleased with the end result, it feels exactly right for this particular young man.

I added a joke (just for me).  The left hand side second block in, bottom row, is actually Spiderman.  You can't really see in the photo above (Note to self:  If I'm going to get serious about this blogging thing I need to improve my photography skills!) but I'm pleased with the way it almost blends in, so you only notice it after a couple of minutes.

Many of the fabrics are from the Dr Suess line, but I added in the orange spot and multi-coloured chevron.

The back is minky - my first time using minky as the backing and it worked really well.  My kids all LOVE the soft back and are insisting I now make them their own quilt with a minky back - so I'll be repeating this in the future.

It is yet to be delivered to Sam.  I need to arrange a weekend trip to him and his family so I can hand it over.  Fingers crossed he likes it.